All your readers will remember the famous picture of Lenin, addressing an open-air meeting in Moscow. On the steps of the rostrum stood Trotsky. But, subsequently, when the picture was republished, Trotsky’s figure had been removed.

In my opinion, a similar re-writing of history has occurred to Harry McShane. In almost all the obituries of him, no mention whatsoever was made of a person who, for a quarter of a century, dominated his political life. Joseph Stalin has been completely blotted out.

In their leadership of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, Harry McShane and Wal Hannington became well known-one might say notorious-for the aggressive manner in which they enforced the Stalinist line. During the Third Period, they made it painfully clear that, within the NUWM's ranks, Trotskyists, ILPers and other independently-minded Socialists were unwelcome intruders.

Though abusive terms like 'Social Fascist' might be flung at those on the left, with the introduction of the Popular Front a much less critical attitude was adopted towards some die-hard Tories. Not an unkind word was uttered either by Harry McShane or the Communist Party about the Duchess of Atholl, a landowner who maintained semi-feudal conditions on her vast Highland estates. She could increase poverty and unemployment without being criticised. Why? Because she thought the interests of the British ruling class conflicted more with those of expansionist Germany than they did with the Soviet Union. This made her a 'good' capitalist whereas Neville Chamberlain was a 'bad' capitalist.

Similar pernicious nonsense abounded during the Second World War, Harry McShane was involved in a ludicrous demonstration in Glasgow. News of a change of Communist Party line came through from King Street while the march was taking place. What had started out as an anti-war demonstration ended up by being pro-war!

The German invasion of the Soviet Union transformed the Communist Party's line. As the Daily Worker's Scottish correspondent, Harry McShane was necessarily at the sharp end. His duty now was to write articles supporting the Churchill government, calling upon workers to make increased sacrifices and demanding that the authorities break strikes. He thought stern action should be taken against those who opposed the war. As Sam Bornstein and AI Richardson say in their book, Two Steps Back (p] 16), 'Harry McShane was particularly to the fore in this witch-hunting'.

By 1944, conditions were getting increasingly intolerable for Scottish miners. They had to do hard physical work on meagre food rations. Much of their equipment was antiquated and was always breaking down. The seams of coal wore becoming deeper and more difficult to mine. Men paid by the ton found their wages failing. But this, according to Harry McShane, was not the reason why workers at Cardowan colliery downed tools: he explained in the Daily Worker that the stoppage had been instigated by Anarchists, Trotskyists and - wait for it - the Duke of Bedford!

Such examples, taken almost at random, could easily be multiplied. Beyond doubt, they prove he was one of the hardest, most disciplined Stalinists in Britain. It is important to state this fact. To do so is not to denounce the man. Indeed, it is to do the precise opposite. Those who give Harry McShane's life a spurious consistency are ironically his detractors. They fail to recognise his gargantuan achievement in 1953, the herculean effort he made, helped by Raya Dunayevskaya. He deserted the camp of counter-revolution and travelled along the revolutionary road for the rest of his life. Most of the traffic tends to be in the opposite direction. For instance, of the five members of the Iskra editorial board, in 1900, only one manned the barricade's in 1917.

Yet, in a period of reaction, Harry McShane left his secure job as a CP functionary. At the age of 61, he returned to work in the shipyards, labouring until. he was 69 years old to obtain entitlement to a full old-age pension. Remarkably, he remained more receptive than most young people to new ideas. Armed with a deep understanding of Hegel and the early Marx, he espoused, with considerable energy, for a further 36 years the cause of Socialist Humanism. Probably in the annals of the British working class movement, no other person has equalled in intensity and duration his degree of commitment.

I loved Harry McShane. It was always a joy to my wife Mabel and myself when he came to stay with us. Not only was he a kind ,and charming person, he was also a great man. Therefore, the truth, the whole truth, about his life should be told. Deliberately, this letter has bent the stick. But, I believe Harry's portrait needs painting, Stalinist warts and all.

Yours fraternally,

Raymond Challinor